To Be Free
by Lady Dementia
Summary: What happens when Rampage gets free to take his revenge...?
1. Chapter 1

**To Be Free**  
_by Lady Dementia__

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"Is each of us a creature free  
Or trapped at birth by destiny?  
Pity those who believe the latter;  
Without freedom, nothing matters."  
(Dean Koontz, _The Book of Counted Sorrows_)

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* * *

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The Transmetal tyrant in the throne was sound asleep, head slumping to one side and his mouth slack. His tail-gun apparently had slipped off of the armrest and was dangling beside the throne, but his other hand was resting on a table next to him, where a glowing blue sphere was captured in a box. The room was dark and empty except for dim red lights.

Then the door cracked open, letting in bright white light.

Megatron didn't stir as the huge crab forced the door open even further, until he could fit through. Rampage crept forward, eyes on his spark, but paused as soon as he was in the room. A suspicious, cunning look entered his optics, and he glanced between the sleeping saurian and the box on the small table. Nothing Megatron had done in the time Rampage had been forced to know him indicated that grabbing his spark back could be this easy.

It must be a trap; another opportunity for Megatron to teach him a 'lesson in respect.' The purple fool had an irritating and painful habit of doing that to him in an attempt to show that he was Rampage's master. It just forced Rampage to back down for another day and plot what he would do to Megatron when he was free.

Free.

In order to GET free, he needed his spark. And if he couldn't just walk over and snatch it, he'd have to improvise...

"Rampage, Terrorize!" he whispered under his breath, transforming. He reached into a subspace compartment and retrieved his missile launcher, then pointed it straight at Megatron's head. The plan he had in mind was risky, but he really didn't have any better ideas.

His finger started to squeeze the trigger.

The relaxed hand on the table lifted and slammed down on top of the spark-box. "Why, my dear murderous crab! How disloyal!" Megatron hissed the jovial words, clearly angry.

"AAAIIIEErrrgh!" Rampage crashed to his knees, the hand holding his weapon supporting his weight as his other hand clawed at his own chest. The pain of the tortured bit of spark in the box seared through the rest of his dissected spark still in his chest.

Megatron sneered. "Perhaps next time you'll think twice about raising a weapon against me--"

"There...won't BE a next time!" the crab shouted hoarsely, interrupting the tyrant, and his hand lifted from the floor, fingers convulsively closing around the missile launcher in a desperate bid for freedom.

An explosion with an undertone of a scream.

Fierce pain that spiked through his body, flinging him over onto his back.

Everything faded into darkness.

* * *

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The first muddled thought that entered his mind was that his spark ached. The second was that it wasn't dark any more. A light blue glow was coming from just above and in front of him. In fact, he discovered when he made an effort to lift his head, the blue glow was hovering over his chest. For a long moment he stared at it without comprehending what it was.

Then he snapped his head to the side, remembering what had happened. From where he was laying on the floor he couldn't see much but Megatron's throne, but that was enough. Most of the table next to it was missing, and also most of that side of the throne. Megatron wasn't sitting in it anymore.

There was, however, a foot just visible around the side of the throne. It was attached to a leg that disappeared behind it, apparently to the rest of Megatron's body.

And his spark...there was a broken, empty box over in the corner.

Rampage looked at the softly glowing sphere hovering over his chest, trying to rejoin the rest of itself, and smiled. "It worked," he whispered, hardly able to believe it. He had gambled on the immortality of his spark being able to survive what Megatron couldn't, and he had won.

The stakes of the game, of course, had been his freedom.

"Finally," he sighed, relaxing and opening his spark casing. He closed his eyes and waited patiently as the lost part of his spark merged back into what was still in his chest, then silently savored the feeling of being WHOLE. It was a warm feeling, and he had missed it. But he couldn't stay here for long. He was vaguely surprised that Inferno or one of the other Predacons hadn't wandered by and seen the open door or heard the explosion, but he wasn't about to question his luck. They must be busy elsewhere.

Climbing to his feet, he strode to where Megatron had fallen and looked down with a smirk. "How the mighty have fallen," he chuckled. "I won, 'master', and there isn't anything you can do about it." A brief look of regret crossed his face. "I do wish that it hadn't been necessary to kill you so quickly, though," Rampage sighed. "I had so many plans on how to make you suffer for what you dared do to me." The crab studied the tyrant's room and considered. "But I CAN have some fun with your corpse...It's been a while since I expressed my, ah, 'artistic' side, and I believe it will be quite amusing to see Inferno's reaction to my finished work." A wry smile crossed his face as he bent to reach for the body at his feet--

--and he paused, hands just barely touching the robot and a look of startlement on his face. Rampage wasn't exactly an empath, but he could feel fear and pain in his victims enough to delight in them...and he could also sense the presence of a living spark, sometimes enough to even recognize individuals if he had been around them before. Because he hadn't been looking for it, he hadn't immediately felt what was beneath his fingertips...

Rampage threw back his head and laughed until the room echoed. "Well, well, well! Sometimes wishes do come true!"

Cruel anticipation filled him as he looked down at his oppressor over the days since his statis pod had landed, and in his mind he rearranged plans. Quickstrike and Waspinator were pathetic, but Inferno had the possibility of berserker strength and rage. But the ant's terror and grief on the account of his unfortunate 'Queen' might also be quite amusing. Rampage would just have to keep him alive to see the fate of the one he misplaced his loyalty onto. Or maybe the other way around? Perhaps seeing his faithful soldier die before him would break Megatron's spirit...

Lost in his musings, Rampage absently went through Megatron's belongings, confident that the size and severity of the tyrant's wounds would keep him offline for some time yet. When he found a coil of energon cording, he used it to tie Megatron's wrist to his tailgun, and his elbows and ankles together. He snickered and made sure the bindings were painfully tight. That would cut off the flow of energon to Megatron's hands and feet, but by the time the problem became troublesome that would be the least of the tyrant's concerns.

The crab stepped back and looked at his handiwork smugly, but then scowled as he thought of what the purple robot had done to HIM. His smirk returned with an idea: he hauled Megatron's unconscious form into a kneeling position and secured him that way using only enough cording from ankles to elbows to keep the position a breath away from painful. As an afterthought, he snapped the tip of Megatron's tail-gun off. No use keeping THIS prisoner armed.

"I think that's about it...for now. No, one more thing." He glanced around the room, looking for what he needed, and his optics settled on the discarded end of Megatron's tail-gun. "Perfect!" he laughed as he jammed it into the tyrant's mouth as a gag. "Can't have ant-boy finding you, now can I?" His mirth welled up in him as he shoved the unconscious form under some shelves so he couldn't be seen. "I'll come back to you later."

A skittering sound came from above him, and Rampage reflexively grabbed upwards without looking. The spider-flashlight in his hand squirmed, and the crab chuckled. Another instance of Megatron's stupidity! How had he NOT realized that Tarantulas was using these little mechanisms to spy on him?

With that in mind, he turned the tiny robot around to point to where Megatron was hidden. "Don't worry, Tarantulas," he said in his grating voice, "I won't be coming for you until I'm done with him, and I intend to take my time." He turned the spider-flashlight back to point at himself. "With all of you," he added, just before he crushed it.

* * *

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The screen filled with static.

Tarantulas stared at it for a long moment, and his hands shook uncontrollably when he reached out to touch the control panel. The spider had intended to spy on what Megatron had been doing, only to find the fool's quarters trashed and Rampage tying him up. For a while Tarantulas had chuckled at the thought of Megatron's unpleasant demise at the hands of the immortal crab, but that last bit...

It shook him to find that the crab knew what his spider-lights were. And he realized the implication behind his final words: Rampage wasn't going to stop at Megatron. Tarantulas should have known that, really. The Protoform was obviously blood-thirsty, and he had a taste for pain.

But his hands were shaking for another reason, though. If Rampage knew what the spider-lights were...did he also know where Tarantulas's lab was? The spider carefully didn't think of what the crab had done to him the last time they had met.

It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Not pleasant at all.

* * *

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Quickstrike had his feet up on the console while he played card games with the computer. It won most of the time, but he was actually winning a game against it when the screen went dark. In fact, the entire room went dark except for the red light from the lava below.

"Hey, what in tarnation's goin' on here?" he grumbled. "Slaggit all, why's it always gotta happen when Ah'm winnin'?" This wasn't something that he was used to, but it wasn't exactly unusual, either. He activated his commlink, not bothering to take his feet off the console. Most of the time Megatron could tell him how to fix it without him needing to. "Hey, Boss-bot! The slaggin' compu--er, Boss-bot?" The line was completely dead. Quickstrike frowned. "Boss-bot?" he tried again.

"Megatron won't be answering you," a voice rumbled, so low that the fuzor almost couldn't hear it. "He's...taking a nap right now." A deep chuckle followed that statement. "I don't expect him to wake up any time soon.

Quickstrike whirled around in his chair, falling from his seat because his feet had still been up on the console. He scrambled back upright and strained his optics in the darkness. Unlike Tarantulas, he didn't have heat-sensitive vision. He had no idea where the voice had come from. The room was dark red with black shadows that moved and twisted with the motion of the lava below. So dark... "Who's there?!" he shouted.

"You know who I am, Quickstrike." The voice was gentle, mocking.

Now that he thought about it... "Rampage? Whaddya think you're doin'? The Boss-bot's gonna crunch yur spark fer this!" But he backed up against the console as he said it, staring hard at the shadows. Something about how the crab had said Megatron 'taking a nap' did NOT sound right...

"Oh, I don't think so."

The voice was closer, louder. And very amused. There was constant movement in the dim redness of the room, but there was no huge form obvious among the darkness.

"What...whaddya mean?" Quickstrike kept glancing around nervously, becoming more frightened by the moment. The door was across the room. He'd have to step away from the console in order to get to it. Taking another look around the red darkness, he edged forward. He gasped as a large shadow shifted from red to black, but when the red light came back it was revealed as only part of the computer.

"Do you know why the Maximals," the word was snarled, "forced me into a statis pod to abandon it on some Primus-forsaken planet?"

"N-no..." The fuzor risked a look over his shoulder only to see red shadows. He quickly turned forward again--

--and saw the black form silhouetted against the lighted doorway.

"Because," Rampage explained softly, "I liked to kill people. I did it a lot, and I enjoyed it." He took a step forward and chuckled a little at Quickstrike's automatic step back. The crab could see the fuzor's wide-eyed expression in the light coming through the door, and it matched the waves of fear coming from him. "Just like I'm going to enjoy killing you, Quickstrike," he whispered quietly, savoring the terror.

Quickstrike shook his head in silent denial, then harder as if to clear his mind of the frightened thoughts clouding it. His snake-hand raised into a firing position almost involuntarily, but steadied as he realized he could fight back. "Ah ain't dead yet," he said grimly.

Rampage laughed out loud, taking his own weapons out. "Yes, fight!" he urged his victim. "Build your fear higher as I crush you! This," he added, "will be most satisfying."

* * *

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Elsewhere in the Predacon base, Waspinator looked up from hauling scrap metal from the lower decks. Above him he could hear what sounded like weapons-fire and explosions, and...screaming? Was that Quickstrike?

"Megatron catch Two-Head playing gamezz on computer again?" the wasp wondered. He listened for more fighting, but only the screams went on, dulled by the distance. "Two-Head never learn," Waspinator grumbled, "and now Wazzpinator probably have to cover Two-Head'zz patrolzz."

With that, he thought nothing more of it and turned back to cleaning out the lower decks.

* * *

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Quickstrike was screaming, screaming, screaming...it seemed like his body was one burning pain, or at least what was left of it. His snake-hand had been severed from the rest of his body to vanish into the red-tinted dark while his other arm hung useless at his side; both of his legs had been blow apart. His left optic was a sluggishly bleeding hole, and even as he inhaled to scream again Rampage's fist cracked his remaining optic.

The smell of mech-fluid would have been oppressive and sickening to any other 'bot, but to Rampage it was perfume. His left hand was holding the fuzor off the floor, over the puddle of fluid his struggles had bled out of him, and his right hand reached out to tenderly touch the exposed wiring in the empty shoulder socket. His fingers clenched, Quickstrike's shrieks spiraled higher in renewed agony, and he tore a fistful of circuitry out of his victim. He threw them to the ground to vanish with the arm that they had once been connected to, then stroked his liquid-covered hand down the side of Quickstrike's face.

Utter terror and pain made the fuzor squirm.

"Such delicious feelings..." Rampage crooned to his victim, and his hand tightened around the fuzor's neck. A whimper was all that could get past, but the crab's laughter made up for it. "Yes...let yourself FEEL the pain, and know that I could make it go on for as long as I like--" here his hand loosened slightly, letting Quickstrike whimper and moan pathetically, "--or end it now." His hand tightened again and shook the torn figure suspended by it.

A rain of mech-fluid spattered the floor, the computer, the crab. Quickstrike was bleeding out quickly from his missing legs, Rampage knew, and he really should do something about it if he wanted the game to last much longer. But the fuzor was just a piece in the game; sacrifices had to be made to make the finish more fun!

"Lucky you," Rampage laughed as he slammed the mangled form down onto the computer console. Sparks flew with the impact, but Quickstrike could only gurgle since the grip on his throat stopped any other sound. Rampage bent close to his audios, gloating over the waves of agony coming from the fuzor, and whispered, "I'm in a hurry, but I'll try to make sure you don't miss any of the sport."

His right fist drew back, and when it came back down it punched through the metal of Quickstrike's midsection. Rampage's hand clenched inside the fuzor's body; clenched...and withdrew. Delicate circuits shattered. Internal systems were dragged out into the air. Rampage's left hand loosened as he reveled in the pain he was causing.

Quickstrike howled as he was gutted. Even when his voice-box over-heated and gave out he kept screaming in basic, animal agony. All that could come out was a rasping screech of tortured metal. Pain and terror pulsed through him, feeding the monster destroying him, and he kept screaming.

Rampage smiled at the hoarse, metallic rasp; music to his ears.

* * *

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Waspinator checked the time. "End of zzhift. Wazzpinator go do patrol and hope Two-Head can do patrol next zzhift. Wazzpinator not want to do two patrolzz in a row again." The wasp buzzed through the Predacon base's corridors, heading upwards. Quickstrike had been on monitor duty this shift. Waspinator thought that he might as well check and see if Megatron had left enough of the fuzor to do a patrol.

He noticed the broken fuse box and the dark room immediately and sighed. "Megatron muzzt have been REALLY mad thizz time," he mumbled as he reconnected broken wires. The room's lights went back on, but the wasp was busy putting the fuse-box's door back on. "Wazzpinator wish Megatron didn't zzmash things when Megatron izz angry," he complained as he turned to walk into the room. "Wazzpinator alwayzz have to fix--EEEEEEK!!!!"

His shrill scream echoed around the room and came back to haunt him as he stood trembling just inside the room. His hands lifted to press against his mouth as if to stop any more shrieks from coming out, or maybe to prevent himself from breathing in the sickening scent filling the air. His optics were locked on the horrifying sight in front of him.

What remained of Quickstrike was piled on the computer console with his own internal systems like some sort of sick sacrifice to some vicious god. His legs were across the room, along with his snake-hand and masses of wiring apparently ripped out of his body. Waspinator twitched and made a sick noise when he realized that he was standing in the edge of a gigantic pool of mech-fluid. And then something worse happened: the body's head turned towards him, empty holes that used to be optics staring through him and a strained sound that could barely be recognized as the wasp's name coming from the fuzor's throat.

Quickstrike was still ALIVE.

Waspinator fell to his knees, fists still pressed to his mouth and a faint squeal of panic coming out despite them. "...T-Two-Head?" he whimpered. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do!! "Wazzpinator not know what to do," he repeated out loud helplessly as the fuzor managed to make a rasping sound of pleading.

A dark form came up behind the shattered victim on the computer console, and Waspinator looked up in shocked terror at the rumbling laugh. "You can run, little prey," Rampage said through his laughter at the wonderful FEAR coming from the tiny wasp. "Run!" He threw back his head and let himself roar with ecstatic laughter. "I'LL take care of Quickstrike!!"

And poor Waspinator, horrified and bewildered, scrambled backwards as the crab leaned forward towards him. He lost his balance trying to get to his feet and sprawled in Quickstrike's mech-fluid, crying out in frightened confusion. Rampage almost collapsed with helpless chuckling at the sight of Waspinator's fleeing shape covered in his comrade's liquids.

His amusement subsided back into a more manageable form, and he silently listened to the clang of the wasp's feet. A faint moan returned his attention to the pitiful bits of Quickstrike. "Well, game piece, time for my next move," he said cheerfully. "Inferno's still out mindlessly doing some patrol, so it's just me and you." A smirk crossed his face. "It's been nice knowing you!"

The guns skittered across the floor as Waspinator entered the last combination in the lock and flung the armory locker open. His shaking hands lost their ability to keep their hold on the weapons he reached for, and more weapons dropped to the floor. Ammunition scattered as he attempted to load one of the heavy-duty rifles he hauled out of the back of the locker with his unsteady hands.

"Why univerzze hate Wazzpinator?" the wasp whispered. "Inzzane Crab-bot going to kill Wazzpinator; what did Wazzpinator ever do to Crab-bot?" He clutched the heavy rifle to his chest and whimpered as he thought he heard something. Was that a footstep? How far away was it? Did Rampage know where he was?

He looked down at the ground and whimpered again. Tracks of mech-fluid led from where he was standing to the door, and probably all the way back to the room where Quickstrike was...was...

"Wazzpinator not want to end up like Two-Head..." The wasp took a deep breath that did absolutely nothing to control his shaking and hefted the rifle. He tip-toed to the door and looked out. The Predacon base's dim lighting didn't reassure him as he crept out into the corridor.

Back to the wall, he moved in the direction of the closest exit from the base. His optics constantly moved, checking ahead and behind with every step. He crouched down and peeked his head out for a quick look down an intersection of corridors, then quickly scurried on. He held the heavy rifle ready the whole time.

Because he was so ready to fight Rampage, what he first saw on the floor made no sense at all. He stopped and looked at it for a long moment, unable at first to recognize it. Edging a little closer, he began to realize what it was, and the rifle fell to the floor as his hands spasmed.

Quickstrike's legs had been carelessly piled in the middle of the hall.

Waspinator whipped around to check behind himself, but there was nothing there. He turned back around slowly, so he saw it this time: on the wall of the corridor, written in fluid that dripped downward slowly, the words 'I'M HUNTING YOU'.

His breath caught in his throat and came out in a muffled scream. He reached down and snatched up the rifle, turned, and sprinted back down the corridor. There was another exit on this level. All he had to do was find the right hallway and he'd be able to make it in one clear run, straight down the hall. There were no rooms or intersections on it he'd have to watch for if he could just reach it in time...

He came to the intersection he'd crossed earlier and started down the left side--only to stumble to a stop and swallow hard. Quickstrike's snake-hand stared up at him from a nest made of its own wiring. It hadn't been here before. And on the wall: 'I'M GETTING CLOSER'.

There was a large enough hole for him to fit through a level up in the ship. He could reach it if he went up the access ladder down the opposite way. Waspinator turned and RAN.

The access ladder's shaft was empty, and he climbed up as fast as he could while still holding the rifle. At the next level he banged on the grating until it tumbled outward--

--and he slammed back against the shaft's wall, as far away from the hole as he could get while the rifle tumbled from nerveless fingers and caught in the ladder rungs a level down. Quickstrike's empty, dead eyes stared at him from the head on the floor, and in front of it were the words 'EVEN CLOSER'.

Waspinator slid back down the ladder and leaped back out of the access shaft, not even stopping to grab the rifle. Panicked and shaking, he glanced around wildly and moaned at what was on the floor in front of him. It hadn't been there a moment ago.

The rest of Quickstrike's mangled body, a large hole where his spark casing had been, lay in a pool of mech-fluid that extended to one of the corridor's walls. Waspinator's optics followed the trail to the wall, then, slowly, up the wall until it reached the words written there: 'I'M HERE'.

Rampage landed on him from above, bearing him to the floor with a crack of metal breaking and a merry laugh at the wasp's scream of pain. One foot landed on the fat yellow and black wasp abdomen behind Waspinator's robot mode, popping it with a sickening crunch. Tubes and wiring burst outward, and Rampage absorbed the agonizing pain and terror he had caused. The high-pitched shrieks quickly got on his nerves, though, and he kicked the wasp over onto his back, then calmly tore his voice-box out with his bare hand.

Waspinator writhed in agony, hands helplessly fluttering from throat to back in hopeless attempts at easing the pain. He clawed at the floor as Rampage smiled down at him, trying to haul himself away, back towards the access shaft.

"I thought about how I would end your miserable life," the crab mused out loud, walking away from the mangled form inching back towards the access shaft, "and I came up with so many good ideas that I had to choose between them. The hunt was fun, don't you think? Oh, wait." Amusement glittered in emerald eyes as he seized one of the ceiling supports and separated it from the wall. "You can't answer me anymore. Sorry, my bad. But your voice IS quite annoying." He tested the end of the long shard of metal he had just torn from the support and nodded in approval at its sharpness. He walked back towards the wasp, who was trying to get through the access shaft's door. "I may come to regret doing that, though. I would have liked to hear your reaction to...this."

With that, he slashed down at Waspinator with the metal shard, splitting his entire middle open. Internal systems spilled onto the floor while the wasp's mouth gaped in silent screams followed by trickles of mech-fluid. Rampage listened to the gurgles that were all the wasp could produce and laughed as Waspinator tried to stuff his internal parts back into himself. Insectile optics stared up at him in pained horror, watching him absorb the emotions.

Rampage blinked as the mix of emotion coming from his victim changed. A strange thread of...what was that? Determination?...was subtly blending in. "Now what could be so important down there?" he asked half-curiously as the wasp gave up clutching his innards and hauled himself part-way through the door into the access shaft. The crab walked over to look down it, and he laughed when he saw what Waspinator's hand was reaching for. "A rifle! How droll! Do you really think you can hurt me, insect?!"

Waspinator grasped the end of the weapon's barrel and dragged it towards him with failing strength. When it wedged itself even further in the ladder rungs, he heard a chuckle from the monster above him.

"Oh, don't mind me," Rampage said to the struggling wasp. "I'll just wait and see what happens. It's not like you're strong enough to lift that thing, anyway. Don't you feel the pain sapping away at you? Doesn't the fear slow you down, gradually paralyze you?" He could see his words having an affect, and the strange new emotion was almost lost in the new flood of terror and agony. "Yes," he whispered, "oh, yes. Let it consume you!"

The rifle was stuck in an angle pointing almost directly at him. NOT at Rampage! Why did the universe have to hate him so much? Had Waspinator offended everyone in some way? His arms shook as he attempted to pry it loose once more.

"Give up, little prey. Give your spark to me...I'll take it anyway!"

The monster's laughter echoed down the corridor and up the access shaft, making Waspinator whimper silently in complete terror. It seemed like the pain in his throat, mid-section, and back was alive, eating away at his mind until it would take him over and...and...Rampage would destroy his spark. Maybe he, a Predacon, wouldn't go to the Matrix, but at least he might still exist...if he could save his spark. His one chance out of this was his doom.

The rifle was still pointing straight at him. Waspinator bent his head until it was in line with the barrel, terrified and in pain, but determined.

Something penetrated the amusement he was feeling at his victim's pain and fear. "What the slag are you--?!" But Rampage had felt the shift in emotions too late.

The sharp retort of the rifle filled the area, and Waspinator's head exploded.

The crab flinched at the loud sound, then looked down at the limp body. "Well," he said with his optics wide with surprise, "I hadn't expected THAT." He knelt and plunged his hand through the corpse's back, seeking the sensation of life that meant a spark was still there. There was none. Waspinator's spark was safe from any physical menace, now.

Rampage stood back up and looked at his dripping hand reflectively. "I never knew he had it in him," he said thoughtfully, turning to walk back down the corridor. It was time for the next part of the game to be played despite Waspinator's wild card. "It's kind of nice to be surprised..."

* * *

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Inferno couldn't remember how he had gotten...wherever he was right now. The last thing he knew was that he had been walking into the Predacon base, then suddenly his head hurt and he was staring at a wall. It wasn't a particularly special wall with any sort of identification he could use, like 'You are in the enemy of the Colony's base' or some such useful mark, so he looked away. It hurt to move his head, so he assumed he had been hit there with something. That explained why he couldn't remember how he'd gotten here...

He recognized his Queen's quarters almost immediately. He also recognized that someone had been going through the Royalty's belongings. His instincts told him to find that someone and kill them, and that's when he discovered that he was tied up, because he couldn't move from where he was sitting.

Sitting?

The Royalty's throne was in the center of the room, and he didn't recall any other chairs in the room. So what was he sitting on?

Inferno looked down to find out and gasped. "My Queen!"

Megatron stared up at him from the floor and shook his head violently.

"My Queen, I--I apologize!" Inferno tried desperately to get himself off of his ruler and failed again. "I can't move, Royalty!" He noticed the facts that Megatron was gagged and tied, and felt his righteous anger at these facts surge even higher as he saw that he was actually sitting on what appeared to be blast wounds on his ruler's side and shoulder. This was obviously painful, and the soldier gulped in mortification that he was causing the Colony's ruler pain. "I'm sorry, my Queen!" he wailed.

Throughout all this, Megatron had been shaking his head in frantic denial at Inferno's words and movements, and his eyes showed despair as a voice came from behind the ant.

"It appears that you're now awake, ant. Good. As I've been telling this idiotic saurian since I brought you here, that's all we've been waiting for. Of course, that's not all I've been telling him, but I might as well skip the preview for you since you'll be experiencing it first hand." A hand clamped down on the ant's shoulder and jerked, throwing him backwards onto the floor along with slamming Megatron's injuries against the ground. Inferno shouted in fury and a muffled yell of pain came from the tyrant. Rampage smiled down at them both.

"Traitor to the Colony!" Inferno shouted. "You'll burn for this!"

"Yeah, right," the crab snorted, reaching down to untie the ropes holding the ant to Megatron. "And just how are you going to do that?"

"I'll kill you!" the ant screamed insanely.

Rampage shook a reproving finger in his face. "Tsk, tsk. You didn't answer my question!" He drew his hand back and backhanded the 'bot across the room to slam into the opposite wall. Something cracked, and Rampage found out it had been one of Inferno's bulging red optics when he leisurely strolled over to pick up the tied ant. He gave a sigh of disgust while Inferno blinked dazedly. "Now, are you going to answer my question?"

Inferno shook his head to clear it and snapped his head to the side to bite into one of the hands holding him up by the shoulders.

"AARGH!" Rampage dropped the stubborn soldier and held his injured hand up before him. "Slag, your teeth are sharp!" He smiled a bit and displayed the hand to Inferno, who was lying on the floor again glaring up at him. "And look what good that did you."

Inferno opened his mouth and closed it again. He stared. Rampage's hand was unblemished by any bitemark.

"A side effect of immortality," the crab chuckled. "It slowed down a bit when a certain fool," Megatron flinched, "split my spark, but it's back up to speed now. Which reminds me..." His gaze shifted from the ant, and Megatron flinched again.

Inferno writhed against his bonds. "I don't care! I'll burn yo--"

Rampage kicked him in the throat to interrupt his tirade. "Oh, see, you made me angry with that little bite of yours, Inferno," he said softly as the ant gagged. "I think that now I'll just have to start with someone else..." He walked slowly towards the 'bot laying on his side against the opposite wall, breathing in the terror and hatred coming off the helpless form. Stopping and looking down at Megatron's strained features, he chuckled a bit just to enjoy the surge of fear it caused.

Inferno took in the scene with his remaining optic, something penetrating his righteous anger. "What...what are you going to do, traitor?" he asked hesitantly, not liking the way Rampage was looking down at the Queen.

"I'm going to torture and kill you both," the crab said quite pleasantly. "I'm just trying to decide which one of you I'll start on first. I think that I'll start on Megatron because of what you just did." He turned slightly to smirk at the horrified ant, feeling Megatron's fear and anger "What do you think of that?"

"N--no, you...you CAN'T!" Inferno couldn't comprehend turning on his ruler, and he shook his head in bewildered fear at the thought. "The Colony--"

"--is mostly dead now. At least, Waspinator and Quickstrike are." Rampage let his two victims digest that; then he shrugged. "I've already told Megatron of how they died. He didn't seem to appreciate my talent," he added with mock sadness. Megatron shuddered, drawing his attention again. "But maybe it's something that has to be experienced, eh?" He reached down slowly, amused by the mounting fear from the ant behind him and the terrified look of helplessness on the bound tyrant's face.

His hands grabbed Megatron's neck, and Inferno broke.

"No! Kill me, not the Queen!" he screamed, and Rampage turned to look at him with a quizzical look. "Traitor, do whatever you want to me, just let the Queen go," the ant begged. "My life is nothing!"

"It certainly is," Rampage agreed. "What's your point?"

"Just...let the Royalty go..."

Emerald optics looked at him, glittering with humor. "You're in a weak bargaining position, insect," the crab said merrily. "In fact, you have two things against you: #1. I'm going to kill you both; and #2. There's nothing you can do to stop me. Like I said, I'm only deciding who goes first."

Inferno barely considered for a nano-click. "Me. Kill me first, traitor."

"Is that a last request?" The ant gave a short nod. "Too bad. I don't grant them. But!" He held up a hand to stop Inferno's protest. "But, I might consider it." The desperate surge of hope from both of his victims made him almost giddy. It was so much fun to push them high enough to come crashing down! "Of course, you'll have to convince me..."

"What do you want me to do, traitor?" the ant asked quietly.

"For one thing, my name is Rampage." He grinned and asked mockingly, "Can you say 'Rampage', Inferno?"

Inferno looked away from where his Queen lay at the feet of the traitor. "Rampage."

"Good!" he said in a pleased voice. "Now, can you say one thing about Megatron that you find completely disgusting?"

His remaining optic looked at the crab in horror. "I...I..."

"I'm waiting," Rampage said in an amused voice that was somehow menacing. He reached over and snagged something that had been leaning against the wall, studying it intently. It was a long metal shard with dark stains on part of it.

Inferno shook his head despairingly. "No, I can't."

"Aww, that's too bad," Rampage said with mocking sympathy as he stabbed behind himself with the metal shard. Megatron's scream was muffled by the gag but still audible, and the ant saw that one of the Queen's feet was pierced through to the floor.

"Stop! No! DON'T!!" Tugging futilely at the bonds, Inferno flopped on the ground and felt helpless fury and fear well up inside him. The Queen was shuddering, eyes wide with pain, and the traitor only smiled mildly and gave the shard a twist to make him shriek again. "Rampage, STOP!!" Inferno screamed wildly.

Rampage laughed in surprise. "You called me by my name! Even while I'm doing this," he twisted at the shard again and soaked in Megatron's pain and Inferno's fear, "you remembered that. Well," he tugged out the shard, "maybe I'll start on you, after all. Memories like that deserved an, uh, 'reward'. YOU, however," he grabbed Megatron by the arm and jerked him upright on his knees, "are going to watch."

Inferno stared at his Queen from across the room and felt anger at what had been done. The Royalty was humbled; the Colony's last soldier was about to die for loyalty. He felt fear for what would happen to the Queen after he was dead.

Then he looked up at the crab standing over him and felt fear for his own sake. He didn't particularly like pain, even for the sake of the Royalty. Rampage hefted the metal shard and selected a target, taking his time so that the ant could figure out on his own where the first blow would fall. Inferno's fear could only grow.

Which was the point, after all.

The shard stabbed into the middle of his lower leg, and Rampage used it to pry the front of his shin off while Inferno tried not to give him the satisfaction of screaming. He lost control of that when the crab stomped a foot down onto the raw metal and used the leverage to slit the inside of his leg all the way down to the tip of his foot, getting a couple of the cords tying him on the way. Inferno immediately kicked his legs out and shrieked when something inside his leg grated against something else that wasn't supposed to be grating against anything. Rampage laughed, soaking in his pain, and pinned his uninjured foot to the floor with the metal shard.

Megatron turned his face away, sickened and angry and above all terrified by what was happening. He could block the sight, but he couldn't stop the sound; Inferno's pained screams and whimpers tormented him and made his fear rise higher. He shifted as much as he could against the bonds and tensed at the pain in his foot.

Footsteps crossed the room. "Oh, Megatron," Rampage said softly. "Look at me, Megatron."

He glanced up at the crab, feeling hatred for a moment until he couldn't help but see the moaning 'bot behind him, and then fear shot through him to overwhelm the hatred.

"Watch what I'm doing, Megatron," Rampage told him softly, dangerously. The tyrant shook his head in denial. "You don't want to make me do anything beyond what I have planned, now do you?" Megatron shook his head again, the fear spiking higher at the thought. "Then watch." And he turned back to walk towards Inferno. The ant saw him coming with his remaining optic and whined deep in his throat, making the crab chuckle.

Megatron looked away again, but slowly, reluctantly, he looked back.

.

.

By the time Rampage was almost finished, all that was left of Inferno was a shivering, delimbed body and head. His propellers had been ripped off and stuffed, one by one, down the ant's mouth and throat, cutting into them deeply and causing runnels of mech-fluid to clog his air filters. Moaning coughs emerged instead of screams now as the crab peeled off the last of his beast mode's face from his chest along with much of the circuitry underneath. A tiny tear in his spark casing allowed light to escape, and Rampage studied it.

He turned to look at where Megatron was forced to kneel. Loving the tormented look on his former oppressor's face, he took a moment to tweak a wire inside Inferno's chest and listen to another cough/moan before stepping towards the tyrant.. He gently took the gag from his mouth. "So, what do you think of my handiwork?" he asked brightly.

Megatron silently worked his mouth for a moment, optics locked on the grotesque sight that had once been his most trusted Predacon. Finally, he managed to look up at the monster who had done this. "Kill him," he said hoarsely. "Please, kill him."

"An odd request," Rampage replied, clearly amused by it.

"For mercy's sake, just let him die!" Megatron pleaded.

"Mercy," the crab mused, "is not something I'm very good at. In fact, I don't think I've ever tried it. Why should I?"

Anger broke through the horror. "You slagging crab, I should have taken your entire spark and fed it to an incinerator!" the tyrant raged, then choked as a large hand clamped onto his throat and lifted him from the ground. The terror returned as he stared straight into Rampage's optics, which were narrowed with fury.

"That," the crab said softly, "was not a wise thing to say to me." His hand started to close, but a coughed moan from what was left of the ant checked his anger. He had plans for Megatron; he couldn't kill him right now.

Megatron gasped with pain as Rampage abruptly opened his hand and let him fall to the ground, landing on his injured foot. His vision swam for a moment as the crab turned away, and so he didn't understand immediately the crunch of metal. When his vision steadied again, he saw Inferno's open chest cavity and blinked, looking up at the 'bot standing over the corpse, blue sphere in one hand.

"No!" Megatron wheezed, understanding finally, but Rampage only smirked.

"You wanted me to kill him," he said smugly as he clenched his hand into a fist, popping the spark like a bubble and eliminating Inferno forever. The immortal killer looked at the shock and dread etched on the tyrant's face and knew it was good to be free.

And the game was far from over...

* * *

.

* * *

_End Part One_


	2. Part Two

**To Be Free**  
_by Lady Dementia__

* * *

_

"Our masters will die, for mercy they'll cry  
And by no man shall we be controlled,  
Aye, and by no man shall we be controlled."

(Alanna Morland, _Shackle And Sword_)

* * *

.

.

Megatron's throne had burn marks and shattered pieces; now it acquired stains as Rampage settled himself into it, dripping Inferno's mech-fluid. He took a moment to rub his hands together, squelching the tiny whisps of blue light still lingering around them and watching Megatron squirm. The tyrant could only make faint sounds of protest through the replaced gag as Rampage rid himself of the last bits of Inferno's spark, but the crab could feel the shocked horror inside of him.

It was amusing, to say the least, but he had work to do if the game were to keep going smoothly. Rampage had learned his lesson about taking on the Maximals in a group. They were too close to each other, unlike the Predacons. While the crab had been able to take out the Predacons because no one had come investigating explosions and screams, he highly doubted that the Maximals would ignore those things. That didn't mean that the game couldn't be fun. He just had to use everything at his disposal to conquer the game board.

Which brought him back to the computer in front of him. Megatron's PERSONAL computer. It should have all the information the Predacons had on the Maximals, along with whatever other interesting tidbits Rampage felt like digging up. His intelligence had really been quite underrated by the fool who had dared try and rule him, and he applied it now to hacking into locked files. It was actually kind of fun, although in a different way than killing and torturing. Those hobbies were fresh and different for each individual they were practiced upon, while as soon as he figured out how Megatron had set up his computer system it was all the same. He'd get bored with hacking.

Well, he'd just have to stay with killing and torturing, then!

Rampage read through the Maximal profiles quickly, filling in the histories of each that he hadn't known. The thing Megatron had noted down as a weakness for Blackarachnia...love? That had potential. Rampage's experience with people in love made him think that love wasn't a 'weak' emotion at all. It inspired those under its influence to daring moves that others wouldn't risk trying, but it also kept people going beyond their endurance when they thought those they loved were in danger. The link between Blackarachnia and Silverbolt would have to be handled carefully in order to get the maximum effect.

Hmmm...too bad he hadn't been free on the planet when this Dinobot was still alive. His honor would have been fun to grind into the dirt. He had noted what honor had driven the raptor to in the fight for the protohumans, but it was amazing what dishonorable acts tortured people would do to earn a reprieve from the pain. On the other hand, Silverbolt might do just as well.

Rampage thoughtfully read through Megatron's account of the odd hatred/friendship between the traitorous raptor and Rattrap. He hadn't known anything about that...never trust a Pred, eh? That philosophy could come in handy later, if things worked out.

Rhinox and Optimus Primal seemed to be the purest Maximals of the group, to Rampage at least. They'd probably be the hardest to coax into playing. Or would they? Optimus would do anything to save one of his troops, if he followed the standard Maximal attitude on that point, and Rhinox might be affected by the pain of another...

Plans sped through Rampage's mind as he casually skimmed through the entries, getting revised and edited the further he read. This game was the most detailed he had ever played! Perhaps there WAS something to be said for enforced patience when it came to killing: revenge was a dish best served cold...so it lasted longer.

Ah, the Predacon profiles!

With a silent chuckle, the crab opened Quickstrike, Waspinator, and Inferno's files just so he could enter 'Deceased' under the status bar. After that was done, he opened Tarantulas'. Everything that Megatron knew about Tarantulas didn't amount to much, really, but Rampage went through it anyway. Information was always useful.

He laughed out loud when he opened Megatron's profile. Obviously, the tyrant had written it himself! "I believe that you have an ego problem," he threw over his shoulder to where Megatron was forced to kneel. "Don't worry, I can get rid of the problem for you." He laughed again at the surge of fear that caused.

Rampage was still amused as he tried to access the next file in the computer, but that turned to annoyance as the password failed. He retried with passwords that some of the other files had used, then some he guessed at. When that didn't work, he attempted to bypass the password entry screen entirely only to find that yet another password was needed, and this time he couldn't get by the entry screen.

"Now, what could be so important?" he wondered out loud as he sat back in the remains of the throne to stare at the computer. None of the other files had required double passwords, and all of the ones he couldn't find one for he had been able to bypass in some way. What could Megatron be hiding?

Why not ask?

Rampage turned to look at the miserable form on the floor, and he smiled. Megatron tried to glare at him, but his hatred was buried beneath terror as the crab got up and walked over to loom over him, Inferno's mech-fluid still dripping slowly off his body. The helpless tyrant tried not to think of what Inferno had gone through right in front of him and what Rampage claimed to have done to Quickstrike and Waspinator, but the thoughts came unbidden as the crab's hand clamped onto his shoulder and dragged him over to the computer.

Slamming the side of his prisoner's face against the screen, Rampage took out the tail-gun tip serving as a gag and pointed at the password entry, which was just beyond the tip of Megatron's nose. "Tell me the password, Megatron," he said in a gentle voice.

"Go jump in the lava," the tyrant spat back defiantly, afraid but not willing to admit it. He yelped in pain as Rampage's other hand wrenched at one of his arms. The way he had been tied was already painful, but Rampage was slowly forcing his arm to bend against the shoulder joint! Biting his lip, he managed to muffle his whimpers, but the strong hand continued to bring more and more pressure against the joint...

The crab waited until the whimpers became gasps and small, uncontrollable cries before letting off a little of the pressure. "Tell me," he said again, tapping his finger against the screen.

Megatron's face was forced against the computer screen so hard the words blurred almost unreadably in front of his optics, but he tried to shake his head in denial anyway, blurring more of the screen as his lip bled onto it. A moment later he shrieked at the same time an audible crack of breaking metal came from his shoulder joint.

"I won't ask again," Rampage said mildly over the tyrant's cry of pain. "What is the password?"

Whimpering involuntarily from the pain, Megatron gave up. "Maximal High Council," he forced past the fire in his shoulder.

Rampage laughed at the irony. "Clever!" he half-mocked. "That is certainly something I never would have guessed on my own, and it's doubtful any of the Predacons or Maximals would have either!" He reached for the broken piece of tail-gun with his free hand and shoved it back into Megatron's mouth before he could react. He let go of the tyrant abruptly to enter the words into the program and soak in Megatron's pain as he fell heavily to the floor on his wounded shoulder. Stubborn as the saurian was, he couldn't completely muffle his gasp, but he did struggle back up onto his knees again despite the fact that his arm was now limp inside his bindings.

Rampage sat back down in the throne and idly kicked Megatron in the side, chuckling absently as the T-Rex 'bot cried out softly behind the gag when he couldn't help but fall over onto his injured shoulder once more. The crab opened the locked file and skimmed through the first entry.

"Well, well, well...a journal..."

Anger surged behind the tyrant's eyes, making them practically glow with restrained fury as Rampage read through his personal notes, reading aloud parts that he found amusing so that he could ridicule them. His anger didn't go unnoticed, and the crab deliberately baited him until Megatron was boiling with rage that he was unable to act upon. At the same time, the crab prodded at his injury, pushing him over and teasing him. Soon the anger and hatred overwhelmed the fear and pain, and Rampage couldn't help but laugh at the seething emotions he felt from the tyrant.

Then he read the next entry in Megatron's journal and frowned.

" 'An incompetent moron just like the rest of my troops, Rampage seems to be of little use to me besides his firepower. He is dangerous, however. If I didn't take such amusement from making his spark suffer, I would have simply killed him when I had the chance...'. That's an interesting way to describe me," Rampage said with dangerous quietness as Megatron stiffened in recognition. "Perhaps the next entry has better wording?" He opened it and read through it while Megatron remembered what he had written and that he was tied up and in the grip of the 'incompetent moron'. The fear began to trickle back.

He watched, wide-eyed and powerless, as the crab's frown deepened gradually into a thunderous scowl with each new entry. The light from the screen caused the murderer's face to be cast in dark shadows and his eyes to glare emerald with terrible anger. Even the renewed fear from his victim couldn't blunt his rage as he read through evaluations of himself that degraded and sneered at his mental and physical abilities, plans to use him, and lastly, an agenda to teach him," '...his place in the Predacon ranks; that is, subservient to me. I think this will be most easily done by presenting him with the freedom represented by the spark-box, then taking it away and punishing him for attempting to escape my control. In actuality, it might not work with Rampage, but if nothing else it IS entertaining...' "

Megatron shrank into himself as Rampage stopping speaking and simply glared down at him in pure hatred. For once, the tyrant regretted what he had planned.

"Entertaining," the crab said coldly, his optics burning with rage contained by only the most fragile hold by...triumph. "Yes, that's something I can understand. After all, the only reason you're still alive is because you entertain me. All your plans to use me have come down to this!" Megatron couldn't prevent a moan of pain as Rampage's foot prodded his shoulder, and a smile filled with gloating spread underneath the hate-filled eyes. "So, let's play a game. Your life is at stake; as long as I find the game...entertaining...I won't begin what I intend to with you. What will you do to delay the torture, Megatron?" Rampage sat back suddenly in the throne, studying the tyrant from the different angle. After a moment Megatron desperately wondered what he really WOULD do to prevent what had happened to Inferno happening to himself, and the crab made a broad gesture. "Do you know any tricks? How about 'beg'? 'Scream', perhaps, or maybe 'crawl'? No? What a pity." Rampage stood up to tower over the 'bot kneeling before him and looked down at him steadily. "I'm going to go make a move on the board with another game piece, but I'll be coming back to you. Try to learn some of those tricks while I'm gone. Especially 'beg'. I think I'd find that trick quite amusing. And the longer I'm entertained..." A strong hand settled around Megatron's neck and used it to lift the 'bot up to the crab's eye level. "...the longer you stay alive. Remember that."

Dropping the tyrant back onto the floor, Rampage walked towards the door.

Megatron was left behind with what had once been Inferno, and the crab chuckled darkly at the wave of despair that followed him from the room.

* * *

.

.

Another voice was chuckling, too, but not from triumph or amusement. Tarantulas' nervous habit echoed throughout the energon cavern he had converted into his secret lair.

Or was it a secret?

A fresh bout of nervous laughter accompanied that thought as he hurriedly typed in commands at his computer. The screens in front of him displayed views of the area around his lair, but while only the local wildlife seemed to be present, he wasn't reassured. Dinobot had managed to sneak up on him once despite his precautions; Rampage might be able to do it, too.

His spider-lights crawled on the walls and computer banks around him, but he ignored them for the moment. They had been useful a little while ago when he had sent them to spy on what Rampage was doing, but now they were practically useless. The live video of the crab's exploits they had sent back to him was about as useful.

Tarantulas glanced over his shoulder; a fearful gesture that was becoming almost as habitual as his chuckling. Shadows flickered in the eerie light of the energon crystals and made him jump. The constant false alarm was starting to tell at him, and he was fretting more and more.

The video...the spider had watched it all the way through even though he hadn't wanted to. The strange angles and rounded shape of the scenes that came from the spider-lights hadn't helped what he had seen. The distortion of the bodies couldn't be blamed on the spider-lights' lenses. Quickstrike, Waspinator, and Inferno had been tortured to death as Tarantulas watched, becoming more sickened and terrified with each new twist Rampage added to their demises. The wasp's suicidal escape had scared Tarantulas more than the tortures, however, because he had found himself looking around his lair and noting things that could be used to end his own life if it came down to that. Waspinator's strange kind of courage had saved his spark; would he have the same courage?

Tarantulas tried to contain the new burst of chuckling welling up in his throat. He failed, and it escaped to fill the cavern, making him start and glance over his shoulder yet again.

He could seek shelter with the Maximals. They had been able to knock Rampage out before, hadn't they? That was how Megatron had been able to access his spark. Why hadn't the fools ended Rampage's life when they had the chance?! Now it was too late for that, and all of the Predacons except Megatron and himself were dead. Megatron was a prisoner of the killer crab, and he...he...ah, slag with it. He was too afraid to leave his lair, now. He had been mesmerized by the deaths and too curious to stop watching Rampage plot his next move, mostly because he had wanted to know if the crab was planning on coming for him next. He didn't want to leave his lair and expose himself to an attack. He could seek shelter with the Maximals by making an alliance to destroy Rampage, but it was too late.

So he had barricaded himself inside his lair. This was the safest place he could think of, anyway, and he was hoping desperately that Rampage would attack the Maximals, not him. Besides, the energon cavern was his back-up plan in case the crab came after him.

Meanwhile, though, he was jumping at shadows.

His hands hovered over the computer console, and he looked at the one screen not displaying the surrounding area. Instead, it showed a radio frequency that he had just entered. Indecision kept him from hitting the last key that would begin his message to the Maximals. Did he really want to warn them? This was an opportunity to kill them off and probably destroy the Ark with them! Could he wait until Rampage attacked and then show up as if he had just found out about the crab's escape? In all likelihood, the crab would be weakened enough by the combined might of the Maximals for Tarantulas to finish him off, then go on to complete the mission given to him by the Tripedicus Council.

No, it wouldn't work. Rampage hadn't taken on all of the Predacons at once, so why would he do that with the Maximals? The intelligence behind the emerald optics was frightening by itself...

Tarantulas looked between console and screen, unable to decide.

* * *

.

Rhinox carefully twisted the thin wires together skillfully despite the size of his fingers. Clumsiness didn't come with bulk for him, and he hadn't sacrificed any dexterity with his beast mode. That came in handy in times like today, when the computer console he was working on started sparking.

"Pass me the wire insulator, please," he rumbled.

Blackarachnia looked up from the computer monitors and blinked at the figure half-underneath the console next to her own. "What size?" she asked as she turned to rummage through the repair kit laying on the floor beside her.

"A three should fit fine."

"Where is the...oh. Here," she placed the correct size insulator in the hand that poked out from under the console, then turned back to the monitors. She absently found and handed Rhinox an adhesive while she attempted to adjust the screens. Static traced across half of them, she turned a dial, and the screens cleared at the same time the other screens filled with wavy gray lines.

Blackarachnia cursed mildly and tried again. It didn't work any better. "Rhinox, where are the wire cutters? I need them to..."

"Blackarachnia?" The rhino pushed out from underneath the console as the widow trailed off with a gasp. "What's wrong?"

She silently pointed at one of the monitors that was clear for the moment. "Get Optimus," she added as Tarantulas looked back at them.

"Yes," the Predacon agreed, "get Optimus, hehahehehe. I need to talk to him!" He glanced over his shoulder at the shadows, obviously nervous, as Rhinox quietly contacted the Maximal leader.

"He should be here in a moment," he told Tarantulas, who gave a short nod.

And Optimus did walk in a moment later. "What's this about, Tarantulas?" he asked a bit roughly, expecting a typically treacherous Predacon plot.

Tarantulas took a deep breath. "Rampage is free," he said bluntly. "He's killed Quickstrike, Waspinator, and Inferno; Megatron is tied up and injured in the Predacon base. I don't dare leave my lair."

Blackarachnia gaped. "Dead..?"

"Yes. They did not," he hesitated, "did not die quickly."

Rhinox and Optimus exchanged an uneasy look, the Optimus turned back to the spider. "Why is Megatron still alive?" he asked in a neutral voice.

Tarantulas winced. "To amuse him," he replied in the same tone.

"Why are you telling us this?" Rhinox asked.

"You've disabled him before. Can you do it again?" Tarantulas watched them intently as little bands of static began to cross the screen. "I can't leave my lair in case he's waiting for me, so you're on your own."

"Cheetor and Rattrap are on patrol," Rhinox murmured to Optimus.

"Call them in and tell them to be careful," the ape whispered back, and the rhino nodded and walked over to a working console while Optimus turned back to the waiting Predacon. "We'll have to check on your story," he cautioned Tarantulas, "but we'll do what we can if you're telling the truth."

Tarantulas seemed about to protest, but then he simply nodded. "If you have to," he said through the steadily thickening bands of static.

Blackarachnia had been studying him closely, so she noticed the shadows moving behind him first. She thought it was just from a wavering light source, but then she saw something inside the shadows...

Optimus was saying, "Will we be able to rely on your support if we--"

"Tarantulas," the widow interrupted, "behind you!"

The Predacon whirled around. "What--?!"

Optimus and Blackarachnia stared in horror as static finally covered the screen, ending the transmission with Tarantulas' scream of terror and emerald eyes amidst the darkness.

* * *

.

"That wasn't nice of you, Tarantulas," Rampage said in a sinister voice, "telling the Maximals about me like that..." He took another step forward from the shadows, and the spider pressed back against his computer.

Tarantulas slid his hand along the console, searching for his gun by touch because he didn't want to risk looking away from the killer in front of him. "Hehahehe, well, I'm n-not a nice person," he stammered. Why couldn't he find his gun? It had been right THERE a moment ago!

"Oh? Really." The crab paused and smiled, letting the spider's fear grow for a moment. "And here I thought I wasn't very nice. Well, then, what does that make ME?"

His hand finally found what he was looking for. "A monster," Tarantulas said grimly, snapping his arm around to point the gun at Rampage, who just looked at him and laughed. Somehow it made him seem that much more frightening that he responded to a threat this way, and the spider's hand shook just slightly because of it.

And Rampage felt it. "Why do you pretend to fight back, Tarantulas?" he asked in a gentle voice, taking a step forward. "Let the fear consume you...give up the fight, and let me control you. The pain will only be worse if you provoke me, and the agony will last longer the more you attempt to fight the inevitable." He took another couple of strides towards the shivering tarantula, one hand outstretched in an almost friendly manner as his soothingly hypnotic voice caused Tarantulas to sway indecisively.

It...would be easier just to give up. Why fight Rampage when he knew he'd only lose? The crab had torn him apart before; what made him think he could resist any more than he had that time? Inferno had angered Rampage by attempting to fight back and look what had happened to HIM!

Weary, defeated thoughts depressed the spider's mind as the gentle tone of the crab's voice deceived Tarantulas' frayed nerves, calming their overstrained tenseness. But the opposite state of the ultra-aware mode he was in was complete relaxation, and the spider felt almost dazed as Rampage kept telling him that things would be better for him if he'd just give up...

The crab suppressed a laugh at the glazed look in Tarantulas' visor. He'd done this before with other victims and with the same results. Transformers kept in a constant alarm state, jumping at shadows, fell all too easily for lies they wanted to believe. A kind voice disarmed them because it wasn't what they expected. The tricky part was to keep them unfocused.

His outstretched hand barely touched the gun still pointing at him, and his fingers slowly curled around it as he watched the spider intently.

Tarantulas felt the tug from his hand, freeing him slightly from the lethargy he was in, and his gaze shifted from Rampage's mesmerizing optics to the gun being slowly pulled from his grasp. He looked at it in puzzlement, trying to figure out what was going on; why Rampage was trying to take his weapon away. His visor moved back up to meet Rampage's suddenly narrowed eyes as reality snapped back into focus, and he pulled the trigger.

"AARGH!" the crab howled, snatching his hand back. A missing finger and blackened metal showed where the blast had gotten him, and Rampage studied the wounds for a moment before turning a murderous look on the spider, who had backed along the computer console while he was distracted and was now edging towards the nearest wall. "I WAS going to make your capture relatively painless," Rampage hissed, moving to cut him off, "but now you'll just have to PAY for this!" He held up his injured hand and smiled as the blast marks faded a little more even as he watched.

Tarantulas fired in quick succession while he was distracted, then dove for the wall and desperately scrabbled at a part of it. Rampage roared angrily behind him, but he didn't dare look back as he searched frantically for the catch...where was the catch?!

THERE!

He slammed his shoulder against the wall, hitting the tiny lever at the same time and tumbling through the now-open escape hatch. His weapon snagged on a protruding rock, but he didn't pause to free it. He let it go and simply dove further into the dark hole. Another yell of rage came from behind him as he crawled down the tiny tunnel as quickly as he could.

Rampage glared at the small opening in the rock wall and growled. His victim had escaped! Or...had he? The crab pulled out his missile-launcher and pushed it into the opening. "It'll be interesting getting you out of there," he mused with grim amusement, and then pulled the trigger.

The explosion shook the cavern; the energon crystals rang with the release of energy, and Rampage's eyes narrowed. A crystal burst nearby, shattering the computer console near it, and the very air inside the cavern shimmered with the sound of energon crystals reacting. The crab swayed under the assault, his internal computer blaring alarms as the energy levels climbed dangerously, and he dropped into his beast mode for protection.

He cursed at himself as he scuttled for the mouth of the cavern; he had been so eager to acquire a new game piece that he hadn't thought about the move he made. He HAD to think his moves through! These robots trapped on the planet with him were not the unwary citizens of a colony or an unprepared starbase population. They had fought against him before, and they knew how to fight him now. Worst of all, he had allowed himself to be caught up in his game to the point of letting Tarantulas actually make him angry enough to do something impulsively.

The energon crystals vibrated violently around him, and his computer shrilled warnings into his mind as the energy levels reached a critical level. Only a few moments left before--

Rampage took a risk and transformed back to his robot mode, hurling himself forward out of the cave as the explosion began, sweeping forward to throw him across the ground like he weighed nothing. His circuits sizzling and shorting out, his computer going crazy, he tumbled into a hollow in the ground and let the storm of released energy boil over him. Huge boulders that had been a cave a moment before thudded down to the ground all around, and debris pelted him.

He huddled into the indent in the ground and waited patiently for the earth to stop shaking. This was the result of his impulsiveness! He wouldn't make this mistake again! Becoming emotionally involved with his victims courted trouble; perhaps being forced to have his revenge after so long was not a good thing, if he made moves like this. His hatred of Megatron could be dangerous.

Strangely, the situation reminded him of something from before. A similar involvement...someone he had once known, and let live. It had been a wonderful game, too entertaining to stop. The hatred had only made it a more vivid memory, the danger a spice to savor.

No, he would let this game play out as he had already planned.

* * *

.

The dust was still settling when he found what he was looking for: a brief glimpse of metal among the rocks. He had searched for about as long as he dared. The Maximals would probably be on their way to the Predacon base already, and he couldn't let them rescue Megatron. Reluctant to leave without what he had come here for, though, he had taken one last look around.

Rampage's special sense, that strange bit of twisted empathy, had helped. Life remained here, but it had taken a while to find it. He hadn't been sure he could unearth him in time, anyway, since the spider had fled into a tunnel. But the blast had shattered the cave, and Rampage only had to heave aside a few large rocks before he could drag Tarantulas' battered form out of the wreckage of his 'secret' lair.

"Well, little game piece," he whispered as he dropped into his tank mode and drove off with the offline spider dragging behind him. "You didn't escape me after all. Whatever shall I do with you, hmmm?" Tarantulas' only answer was a thud as he was pulled into and then over a small ridge, and Rampage chuckled. A few more dents wouldn't matter in the long run.

The crab sped up a bit as his thoughts settled onto what he planned. Quickstrike's spark had been flavored with tormented fear, and Megatron had been revolted by how he had lingered over its taste when telling the tyrant the tale. It had amused him, and the fuzor's life-force--what a rush..! Waspinator's suicide was a surprise, a new turn to the game, and it had shocked Megatron. A pity that Rampage hadn't been able to consume his spark, too. Inferno's spark had been sacrificed to expand the tyrant's terror beyond what the ant's torture had already done. Now Rampage thought of what Megatron's spark would be like, and if Tarantulas had been online he would have been petrified just by the eager hunger in his captor's optics.

It was time for his next move. How he loved being free!

* * *

.

The Predacon base was as he had left it: dark and deserted. Waspinator's head lay in the doorway, and he kicked it aside as casually as he had originally kicked it into place. A moan from behind him warned him that his captive was waking up, and he turned quickly to grab him by the shoulders.

"Wake up, spider," he crooned as Tarantulas' visor flickered on and off. The smaller Predacon moaned again, apparently completely disoriented by the damage done to him by the explosion and cross-country journey. "Wake up!" Rampage yelled into his face abruptly, shaking him bodily.

"YAAH!" Tarantulas shouted in shock, snapping fully online as the crab's voice echoed throughout the base and his current poor condition was brought to his attention by the painful movement.

"Are you with me now, spider?" Rampage asked, his voice gentle again.

His visor dimmed, damage reports flickering across his sight, then brightened as he focused at the face in front of him. "Rampage!" His own voice was high-pitched with fear, and it only worsened as the crab laughed. A final damage report told him that even his shoulder missile launchers were inoperative.

"Yes, let yourself feel the fear!" he coaxed cruelly. "It's so delicious, is it not? The anticipation of pain is sometimes fiercer than the actual pain..." He paused, and his eyes narrowed in savage pleasure. "Sometimes."

"Let me go!" Tarantulas winced at the laugh that followed his weak demand, then yelled in pain as the hands holding him off the floor slammed him back against the wall. Something cracked, and he hoped it was the wall. A brief moment and another smash into the wall later, he knew the cracking sound was coming from him. As he raised his hands to futilely pry at the hands on his shoulders, two of his spider legs just…fell off. A third cracked in the middle of the first joint, splitting all but a couple of wires. It hung by those, pulling them to a painful tightness as the disjointed leg swung freely.

The spider choked off another cry of pain as his exposed wiring sparked and fizzled, and Rampage dropped him suddenly. His legs gave out from the unexpected shock, and he crumbled to the floor helplessly. The larger 'bot laughed darkly and planted a foot in the middle of his chest, forcing him back down to the floor when he started to get back up.

"What are you going to do?" Tarantulas wheezed, trying to distract his captor as Rampage put more of his weight on the foot resting on his chest. It felt like all of the weight was coming to bear on his air intakes, driving the air out of the delicate systems and compressing them dangerously.

The crab looked at him like he was a half-wit. "What do you think?" he mocked.

He refused to flinch as the pressure got worse. "Why?" he asked desperately.

Rampage gave him the condescending look again. "Because it's FUN," he said like he was stating the obvious.

Tarantulas stared up at him, horrified despite himself. He knew the crab could sense his emotions, but he couldn't control himself. He had seen what Rampage had done to Quickstrike, Waspinator, and Inferno and listened while he had gloated over their pain; the idea that ANYONE could just bluntly say what Rampage had just said…it was obscene. The thing standing above him was beyond being a monster. He couldn't even bring himself to label the crab a Cybertronian, and he cringed in complete, disgusted terror from the mere touch of the foot crushing his chest.

Rampage soaked in the revulsion and sighed in satisfaction. It was so easy to inspire fear in 'bots like this particular Predacon. He had dealt with the type before. Render them powerless, and they begin to panic. Tarantulas was so used to having some sort of angle on the situation that being unable to talk or fight himself out of danger automatically made him afraid. And when the danger was fatal…well, the mix of emotions was delicious: pain, fear, helpless fury, and loathing. And yet it was somehow all the more delectable for all that he'd had it before. The ones who were used to power experienced such greater heights of terror because they had the intelligence and imagination to build it up themselves when threatened. Quickstrike's spark had been so wonderfully luscious mostly because it had been the first in a long while, but in reality there was a wider, more varied range of tastes to be had among the more powerful 'bots.

His thoughts were cut off abruptly as Tarantulas' hands stopped futilely pushing at his foot and clamped onto his ankle instead in a twisting move that threw the immortal off-balance. The spider immediately slipped out from underneath his weight and rolled desperately towards the exit, which was still in sight. Rampage stumbled back in surprise, but he recovered in a few quick steps and snarled more in irritation that his thoughts had been interrupted than because his prisoner was escaping.

"Get back here!" Rampage snapped, and his right hand flicked into his subspace compartment. In a nano-second, he was holding his missile launcher.

A single, precisely-aimed missile hit the floor in front of the fleeing Predacon, and Tarantulas couldn't stop his forward motion in time. Already dented metal melted in places as the explosion ripped another two of his beast mode's legs off, but the despite the injuries he hurled himself forward over the new hole in the floor. His internal computer wailed about damage to his transformation circuitry, and his grimly ignored it because it wasn't going to matter if he couldn't transform if he didn't escape—

He tripped over something in the middle of the corridor and went sprawling face-down on the floor, his head slamming against the wall. Static temporarily roared across his vision as the far left side of his visor broke into a large crack with several tiny fractures riddling either side.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," someone was saying slowly, and he dizzily registered footsteps coming towards him, but he couldn't seem to get his limbs to work..! "I would have thought you would learn from how your escape attempted ended last time, but apparently I would have been wrong." A loud, mocking sigh of despair echoed in the hall as the Predacon heaved himself over onto his back. The static in his vision was clearing, and he could see the dark silhouette that was Rampage.

The dark form stooped to pick something up off of the floor, and the crab's grating voice chuckled. "What do you know…he WAS good for something! Want to see who kept you from escaping, Tarantulas?" Tarantulas blinked the last bit of static away and looked up in time to see Rampage turn the object in his hands around to face him. "Say hello!"

Tarantulas looked at the smashed ruin that had been Waspinator's head, and he screamed.

* * *

.

.

Optimus shifted, and Rattrap yelped. "Hang on!" the larger Maximal said belatedly.

"Yeah, yeah," Rattrap muttered, clamping his paws onto a more secure grip. He was tense, even tenser than usual for flying with Optimus, but for once he didn't try and lighten the mood with a joke or wisecrack. There were situations where that wouldn't help, and this was one of them. He was scared, but so were the rest of the Maximals.

To one side of them Silverbolt was carrying Blackarachnia, and she looked just as grim as Rattrap even though she didn't have the ears to lay back in fright. She had known Tarantulas better than the rest of the Maximals, and she could often tell when he was genuinely afraid. He could act frightened to manipulate someone when it suited him, but he had been terrified and trying to cover it up. He hadn't done a very good job of it, which had convinced Blackarachnia that this wasn't some elaborate trap set by Megatron. Tarantulas' transmission hadn't even been scrambled to conceal his location, and Rhinox had traced it back to a place Blackarachnia had immediately recognized. The thought of Tarantulas tricking her and keeping the energon cavern as his lair was infuriating, but she couldn't do anything at the moment. Instead, she had briefed the other Maximals on what she knew about the area.

But that had been later. Before Optimus could even do more than start to plan a possible rescue attempt, a massive energy signature had erupted on the scanners. Computer alarms had screamed, and Blackarachnia had stared at the screens in disbelief. A signature that huge meant an explosion larger than the one Tarantulas had rigged up to make it LOOK like the energon cavern had exploded. Something that large couldn't be faked! And there were only two explanations for it: either Tarantulas had set it off himself, or it had been accidental. Rampage would never make Tarantulas' death that quick.

The only question now was whether or not he had survived the blast. That was why she and Silverbolt were on their way to what was left of the cave while Optimus and Rattrap flew on towards the Predacon base. Rhinox had remained behind to guard the Ark mostly because he couldn't get into the air to escape if he encountered Rampage outside of the base. Cheetor…well, they had told him he was helping Rhinox, but he had been left behind because Optimus knew how impulsive the cat was.

"Don't split up!" Optimus called to the other two when they swerved off to search. "Stay in contact with each other and Rhinox!"

"No, I think we'll just wander away and let Rampage pick us off," Blackarachnia muttered, tightening her hold on Silverbolt's ruff as the wind buffeted her.

The wolf-bird fuzor's ears flicked backwards when he heard that. "Beloved, our commander only wishes us to be safe…"

She sighed. As much as she loved it, sometimes his complete ignorance when it came to sarcasm was annoying. "I wasn't being literal, Bowser," the she-spider mumbled into his fur. "He was just stating the obvious, and I'm…I'm trying to relax a little."

"Ah." Silverbolt's wings tilted, sweeping them upwards and onwards towards a mission full of danger, but for the moment the couple were quiet. How they had found love in the middle of a war for their lives and time itself was a mystery not only to the rest of the combatants, but also to them. Eventually, though, they had learned not to wonder and just stole what moments they could for being together. They might die at any time; all they had was the here-and-now.

Optimus watched them soar off for a moment, then turned his attention back to his own flying. He wasn't sure what to think of what they were doing. Saving the Predacons from a Maximal mistake…

"How're we gonna stop Rampage?"

The question Rattrap asked was one of his own, and he couldn't answer it any better out loud than to himself. "I don't know. Last time we thought we could hunt him down once we had recovered, but Megatron found him before we returned. And last time we couldn't even knock him offline without forcing him off a cliff."

"He won't fall for dat again." Rattrap shook his head mournfully. "Ya can't kill him, ya can't put him down for long—slag, can we even keep him locked up if we DO put him offline again?"

Optimus was silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he finally sighed. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't supposed to be brought online again." His voice lowered, like the words were almost being dragged from him, "He shouldn't have been brought online in the first place."

The rat shivered and flattened his ears closer to his head. "Yeah, well, we can't really do nothin' 'bout that now." He peered down at the ground flashing by uncomfortably far away, but even his unease with flying was less than just the subject of Protoform X. He had known that the X statis pod was onboard the Axalon, ready for delivery to a barren planet, but knowing what was inside was far less frightening than actually fighting it. "We're gonna die," he added.

It didn't reassure him in the least that Optimus didn't automatically tell him to shut up.

* * *

.

.

Megatron looked up wearily as the booming footsteps came down the hall. He had struggled against the bonds around his wrists and ankles, but all he had accomplished was tightening them even further and tiring himself out. He had finally given up, the remains of his most loyal soldier lying across the room from him inspiring both anger and despair. The ant lay with his chest gaping, spark casing empty, and hatred welled inside the tyrant every time he looked at the mangled thing that had once been Inferno. Matching the hate, though, was fear, and he felt both rise in him as Rampage walked through the door.

The crab took one step into the room and stopped short like he had come up against a wall. He looked at the kneeling 'bot thoughtfully, taking in the sight of the fury and terror still glittering in his optics while the emotions pounded at him through his extra sense, strong enough that he could almost SEE them swirling around the room. It was… "Delightful," he sighed, fascinated by the waves of bitter feelings. Megatron could seem indifferent or intense depending on what type of mood he wanted his audience to feel, and Rampage hadn't realized that so many layers of fear could be lurking inside that mask of an exterior.

He took another step towards Megatron, seeming almost dreamy as he sampled each separate layer, savoring the different flavors and depth of feeling. The room would have been stifling to anyone else with its pent-up aura of fear filling every corner, but Rampage was intoxicated. He drifted another step closer, optics dimmed as he homed in on the source. By looking just through his extra sense, it seemed like Megatron bled waves of panic and hatred.

To Megatron, Rampage appeared to be looking through him. He had just stepped into the room and looked around, his optics obviously unfocused and seeing something that Megatron couldn't. His expression was distant but somehow appreciative. That was almost as frightening as it would have been for the crab to storm in and glare at him. The stare Rampage had turned on him didn't look AT him; it was like he wasn't even there.

Rampage shook his head suddenly, snapping himself out of watching the emotions that were/weren't there. He didn't have much time before the Maximals would come, and the seductive swirl of fear/hate would only get better if he acted now. The thought brought a smirk to his face, and he glanced at the torn form of Inferno lying in the corner. "Poor Inferno," he remarked, his smirk denying his words even as he said them. "His ending was quite…dramatic, don't you think?"

Megatron's optics lit hellishly with hatred, and he growled behind the gag stuffed in his mouth. A vivid blaze of violent fury bloomed around him, and Rampage couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, don't be so angry, Megatron!" he chided his prisoner. "Compared to what I'm going to you, his death was rather mild. After all, I only crushed his spark." His smile was vicious, and the tyrant's anger shrank back before it. "Your spark? Well. I'm going to use my imagination." He chuckled low and evilly as Megatron's eyes lit with another emotion entirely and fear seeped out of his kneeling form. "I've had a LONG time to think about this, Megatron, and right now your fate depends entirely on what Maximals come to your rescue." He knelt down to the level he had forced the tyrant to kneel at, and he looked into Megatron's optics with abrupt intensity. "Do you know what it's like to hold a spark in your hands, Megatron? You held mine for so long…did you enjoy it? Did you have that sense of ultimate power, to let me go or make me suffer as you willed?" Absently, like he didn't even know he was doing it, one of his hands touched his chest where his immortal spark pulsed, whole once more. "No matter how much this body is beaten, cut up, blown apart…it never hurt as much as a single compression of that accursed box you put my spark in. I can torture your body for my vengeance, but what I really want isn't that." He leaned close, the hand not on his chest gripping the back of Megatron's head and making him look straight at him. "What I really want," he whispered only inches away from his former captor's face, "is to consume your spark. To tear it apart and make you feel that pain; to take your spark's energy and use it as my own."

He stood up suddenly, flinging Megatron away from himself and looking down at him coldly. Megatron's optics were wide with utter terror, panic overwhelming any anger he had as the crab's words sank in, painting him a picture of an agonizingly short future. He squirmed, trying desperately to avoid the hand reaching for him again. He failed, of course, and Rampage effortlessly seized him by the arm in a painful, hard grip he used to drag him to the blasted throne in the middle of the room. A quick twist released Megatron from his kneeling position, but he was still tied hand and foot when the crab slammed him into the seat. His injured shoulder roared with pain, and he gasped behind the gag.

Rampage leaned in close again, amused as the tyrant flinched back into the throne. "That's what I WANT to do to your spark," he hissed into his face, "but it all depends on the Maximals. The game is on hold until they arrive. However…" He bent and picked up something, bringing it up so that Megatron could see it was a metal shard, stained with mech-fluid. Recognition made Megatron cringe in terror. "We might as well entertain ourselves until they get here, hmmm?"

* * *

.

.

"Coming up on the Predacon base," Optimus said. "Are you still tracking us, Rhinox?"

"**There's a lot of interference,**" his radio replied, then buzzed briefly with static as if to add emphasis to the rhino's observation. "**Blackarachnia did wonders just to get th--*fzzzt*-- uch distance, but she's not a miracle worker.**"

"Understood. Just do your best."

Rattrap craned his neck to get a look at the lava-lit ground below. "We're gonna die," he murmured, and he wasn't surprised this time when Optimus didn't respond.

* * *

.

.

The computer alarm had been turned up before he began because he knew how involved he tended to get. A normal alarm wouldn't have even put a dent in his concentration, and he had turned the volume up because of that. Well, and the screaming would have drowned it out otherwise.

Megatron slumped in his bonds as his tormentor turned to look at the computer. His arms were now tied to the armrests of his throne, and his legs and upper body were also strapped down. But where his hands had been…only seared stumps remained. Mech-fluid drenched the throne, covering the stains left by Inferno's fluids and continuing to drip steadily from the tortured robot's chest and arms. Sections of armor and Megatron's beast mode had been flayed back to the expose the delicate wiring underneath, and Rampage had carefully slid a knife under the outer layer of metal, loosening it so he could strip it off. The process was similar to skinning an animal…except that Megatron was still alive, and the crab had been very careful not to damage anything vital to his immediate health. In the long run extensive injuries like his would be fatal, but he would be alive for the near future.

In the game Rampage was playing, that was all that was necessary.

"Lucky, lucky you," he said to Megatron as he looked at the screen. "Optimus Primal and Rattrap. I'm disappointed for my own sake." When his words didn't seem to get through to the 'bot in the throne, Rampage walked back to him and slipped a hand under his chin. "Megatron," he crooned as he lifted the tyrant's head. Megatron's optics flickered dimly, and a surge of fear made the crab smile in pleasure. "I know you can hear me, Megatron," he whispered tenderly, and his other hand smashed down on the raw end of one of his prisoner's arms.

Megatron screamed piercingly, his optics flaring with agonized consciousness, and Rampage laughed as he soaked in the pain he had caused. Shuddering, Megatron subsided into a kind of mewling cry in the back of his throat as he looked up at the crab. "It's time to decide what to do with your spark, Megatron," Rampage said, his voice soft once more in deceptively caring tones. "Shall I take it like I did Inferno's?"

The prisoner squirmed futilely as Rampage put a hand on his chest, feeling his vulnerable spark at the murderer's fingertips. "No," he rasped, forcing words through a throat harsh from screaming. "Please. No."

His pleading amused Rampage, but he merely walked around the throne to stand beside it. "You needn't get so excited," he teased. "I already told you that you're lucky. As much as I regret it, I have another use for your spark. For now, though…" He tapped a few keys on the console beside the throne, bringing up a manual targeting program for the autoguns, then picked up the knife and flamethrower where he had left them.

Megatron whimpered.

* * *

.

Their radios received the call at the same time, and they acted the instant they realized it wasn't Rhinox trying to contact them. Optimus had been hovering, looking around warily at the lava-filled landscape because the expected Predacon autoguns hadn't appeared. He dropped into a violent dive the moment his radio transmitted a familiar, grating laugh. Rattrap yelped but didn't object; already leaning to one side, he was scanning the dark ground for Rampage's metallic form. He didn't see anything, and Optimus' evasive maneuver was for nothing. No crab was visible, and no missiles were incoming. There was only that insane laugh and the sound of Primal's jets…

"**Oh, don't be so worried, Maximals!**" Rampage said in what would have been a jovial tone of voice if it wasn't coming from him. "**I'm not going to make myself a target that easily. No, I'm safely inside the base.**"

"Like we can trust DAT," Rattrap muttered just loud enough to be heard over his radio. He was still scanning the ground cautiously.

The crab laughed again, apparently amused by Rattrap's sarcasm. "**No, perhaps not,**" he said, and his voice was full of unholy glee. "**But I do have someone here who can vouch for my location. Megatron..?**" There were background sounds like the clinks and scrapes of metal against metal, and then someone gasped audibly into the transmitter.

"**Op…Optimus?**" Megatron's voice broke, and the Maximals' eyes widened in surprise. The Predacon tyrant's normally confident, deep voice was thin and shaking with panic.

* * *

.

He had a good reason to be afraid. The crab had torn the radio transmitter out of the console so Megatron could speak into it without being untied, but that left Rampage free to loom over him. Megatron was staring at him, horrified but somehow fascinated as the crab pulled the trigger on Inferno's flamethrower, bathing the knife blade with fire. It heated quickly to cherry-red, then white, but Rampage pulled it out of the flames before the metal could begin to melt. The crab eyed it critically as it smoked in his hand with searing heat, then gave it another quick blast of fire. After doing this earlier, he was gaining experience with how hot it had to be for what he wanted to use it for, and he was well aware that Megatron cringed into the singed remains of his throne every time he held the knife up to inspect.

"Tell them where we are," he murmured almost absently, his attention seemingly focused on the knife he was examining. Megatron wasn't fooled. Waves of paralyzing terror rippled outward from his restrained form, and Rampage absorbed them with an internal sigh of contentment. That didn't stop him from setting aside the flamethrower he had taken from its previous owner and turning to face his prisoner fully. He lowered the burning-hot knife slowly, watching Megatron struggle futilely as its heat touched his right arm lightly just above the stump where his hand had been. "TELL them, Megatron." The tyrant shook his head more in desperation than defiance, his mouth opening and closing over and over in silent fear. Rampage smiled, the kind expression at odds with the way he cruelly pressed down, sinking the smoking blade into Megatron's arm gradually. Metal melted, parting while the mech-fluid inside burnt, cauterizing the wound even as it was made.

Megatron stiffened, breath hissing out between his teeth as his eyes flared with agony. "Stop…please, st-stop," he pleaded before he realized he was speaking out loud. When he heard himself, though, he clamped his jaw shut on his moans.

"Tell them where we are," Rampage said gently, easing up a little on the pressure and gesturing at the transmitter. On the other side of it, Optimus and Rattrap could barely hear the soft conversation going on between the crab and his prisoner, and their concentration was total as they strained to listen to all that was unfolding.

His captive swallowed hard, too terrified to feel humiliated that the Maximals could hear his torture as he gave in. "My quarters," he said hoarsely. "We're in m-my quarters, Optimus. Get me out of here!"

The next moment he shrieked in agony, and another slice of his arm joined other pieces already on the floor along with his hands and what was left of Inferno. Rampage turned away quickly, leaving the knife half-embedded in the throne's armrest as he checked the program he had opened up on the computer earlier. He had a time frame of a nano-second, but if this worked…

* * *

.

The scream coming from their radios held such animal suffering that it was almost unrecognizable as Megatron's voice, but just the pure depth of anguish in it stunned the two Maximals…and for a moment, just a fraction of a second, they were distracted. By the time the tortured robot's wail ended in a pained whimper, it was too late for either Rattrap or Optimus to react to the deceptively quiet *click-whirrrr* of autoguns activating.

By then Rampage had Optimus locked into the computer as their main target.

* * *

.

"Maximal Units Optimal Optimus and Rattrap status: offline," the feminine voice of the Predacon computers said, and the crab laughed. The two Maximals weren't in the air any longer, mostly because he hadn't wasted any of the autoguns on the rat. It had taken several rounds from all of the guns just to knock the larger ape offline, but the fall itself had taken care of Rattrap.

He turned away from the console screen and advanced on Megatron. The tyrant shrank back as far as he could from the oncoming crab, trembling uncontrollably as pain roared through his body. The newest chunk carved out of his body actually bled less than his chest did because of the way the hot metal of the knife had burnt the stumps of his arms closed, but torture was torture.

"You've been quite entertaining," Rampage whispered tenderly, deliberately reaching out to touch the side of Megatron's face for the rush of fear it caused, "but my newest guests have brought the game to a new stage. I have no more time for you…'Master'." He chuckled quietly as Megatron flinched from his touch, eyes wide in utter terror as the meaning of his words sank in. "As fun as it's been, this grows old."

His hand traced downwards, raking over exposed wiring and causing a yelp of pain before finally settling on the tyrant's chest over his spark casing. Spikes of emotions too intense and bestial to have names shattered Megatron's remaining resolve to deny Rampage what little pleasure he could as the crab's fingers began to dig into the thin armor protecting his spark.

"NO!" he pleaded wildly. "Not this; please, don't--!" He gasped as the fingers flexed a bit, and Rampage gave him a considering look. The crab seemed slightly amused by the interruption, and Megatron reached desperately for enough control of himself to persuade this monster to have more mercy on him than he had granted Inferno or Quickstrike. "You wanted me to beg," Megatron said in a despairing, hopeless voice as he stared up at his torturer. "I'm begging. Please. Don't do this. Torture me, kill me, but don't—don't—" He stopped and looked down, breathing hard like the extra air could drive away the living nightmare he was in. His spark pulsed within him, so vulnerable with only a fragile piece of armor between it and extermination. "I beg of you," he continued after a long moment, and his voice was nearly inaudible, "have pity. Please…mercy."

Rampage experimentally flexed his hand again, snickering under his breath as the tyrant who had lorded over him for far too long winced and groaned in pain. "Very well," he said solemnly, and he let his hand drop from Megatron's chest. He stifled another chuckle as hope brightened his prisoner's optics. Fool. This was all part of the game; if the idiotic saurian had listened, he would have realized that the crab had already SAID his spark was safe from him. As reluctant as he was to let this particular spark go, the game of freedom would only be made sweeter by what he had planned.

"Know this, Megatron," Rampage continued, and his prisoner stared up at him. "You've tried so hard to make yourself a true master of others' freedom and lives, but it's come down to this, hasn't it." It was a statement, not a question, and there was a sour taste of shame throughout the sweet waves of pain and fear that Megatron bled. Like salt in sugar, it only made the mix more delicious to Rampage. "You, the leader of the Predacons, groveling for your very existence from someone you claimed to have dominated. Such arrogance. In the end, Megatron," the crab leaned down right into Megatron's face, "you will pay for that arrogance with your spark. Remember that." Optic to optic with his captor, the tyrant could no more conceal his terror than his pain, and Rampage laughed.

And then he grabbed Megatron's head and twisted sharply.

The main cable, the robot 'spine', snapped with a brittle crack, and Megatron jerked once convulsively before he went offline. Rampage quickly used the same knife he had used to flay the tyrant to open the back of his neck. The break in the cable was clean, and he reconnected the wiring that would keep vital systems running. He left the wiring connecting motor control and nerve wires separated. Megatron would still live, but when he came back online he wouldn't be able to feel or move anything below his neck. He would still feel his involuntary functions like breathing and sensations from his energon pump and his spark, but that was all. In that way, it was a kind of mercy. After all the effort Rampage had put into torturing him, he couldn't feel it anymore…

But that was the point, and Rampage continued to laugh as he picked up something that had been discarded onto the floor earlier. The stink of fear in the room was fading, and Megatron's spark was safe from him, but the irony of using the object in his hands as Megatron's destruction was enough to satisfy him.

Even him.

* * *

.

.

Optimus was sprawled on the ground, dents and scrapes covering him. He'd tried to spare Rattrap the full force of the crash, but the only direction he could maneuver was down as his jets gave out. The next volley of blasts from the autoguns had sent Optimus offline, and the rat had been flung away when the Maximal leader had plowed into the ground. He lay offline well past where the ape had crashed, his arms bent uncomfortably under himself. At least, it would have been uncomfortable if he had woken up in that position. That wasn't meant to be, apparently.

Footsteps crunched on volcanic ash and rock, though, and Rampage hummed cheerfully to himself as he walked along the ridge where the two Maximals had crashed. It had only taken a few moments to set up what he had wanted in Megatron's quarters; plenty of time remained before the Maximals' repair systems brought them back online. He gave Optimus' head a viscous kick in passing just to insure that. No need to be overly confident, after all. Megatron's arrogance had been more than an annoyance; it was a lesson to him.

His humming became almost obnoxiously happy as he approached Rattrap. His plans for this Maximal had been forming ever since he had read the rat's profile in Megatron's files, and by his estimation, the other Maximals were just barely smart enough not to walk into a death trap once they knew for sure that Rattrap and Optimus were down. Rhinox would act as a level-headed commander, and Blackarachnia was an ex-Predacon. She certainly wouldn't run in full of heroism, and she probably wouldn't let Silverbolt, either. Rampage's mind was working on a plan for them—

"**Base to Big Bot!**"

The crab's head whipped around as Cheetor's voice split the still air, but Primal's radio only spat static noise in reply. The Maximal leader wasn't online, but his radio was still activated from receiving Rampage's transmission.

"**Base to Big Bot! C'mon, it--*fzzt!*--heetor. Talk to me!**"

Rampage thought rapidly. Usually there was too much interference for radio transmissions to get from base to base, so that hadn't been included in his plans. But since the Maximals were obviously able to communicate, there was a chance for a change in his plans… "Hello, cat," he said as he activated his own radio. His mind clicked through the new possibilities even as he spoke. "Don't expect Optimus to answer you."

There was a moment of silence. Then: "**You slag-sucking bilge pump, I'm gonna--**"

"What?" he asked with malicious joy as he walked over and ripped out the Maximal leader's radio. No use letting the ape contact his friends. The squeal of abused metal was loud enough that he was sure the cat could hear it, and he smiled at the thought of Cheetor's horror. "I can always use suggestions, and since now I have Optimus and Rattrap here for me to try them on, well…"

Another pause full of dismay. Weaker, more unsure this time, Cheetor's voice came over Rampage's radio: "**…you're lying.**"

"Am I?" He smiled at nothing and turned his radio off. Whether or not this new twist of the game would work didn't really matter. His plans were flexible. Either way, poor young Cheetor would have the mental image of his two friends at the mercy of a freed murderer. It probably wasn't a pleasant image for the cat. Rampage threw Rattrap across his shoulder and laughed again just because he could, thinking of Cheetor's anguish.

* * *

.

"I gotta help them!" Cheetor insisted, and Rhinox sighed as the cheetah paced once around the room and leaped up onto a chair, Transmetal cat claws flexing and digging into the seat. "I gotta!"

"I understand that, Cheetor—"

"No, you don't!" The cat jumped off of the chair again and stalked around the room, restless and tormented by thoughts of what that slagging crab was doing. "You don't understand!" he growled. "If we leave them with that—that—PSYCHOPATH, he'll rip out their sparks! I'm fast enough! I can get there before even Blackarachnia and Silverbolt!" Metal shredded beneath his paws, and he gave the floor a guilty glance. His worry crowded out the unimportant damage to the flooring, though. "I gotta go, Big Green."

Rhinox took a step forward, holding out his hands in open appeal. "Cheetor, I want to help them, too. But what happens if Rampage is just tricking us? All he needs is to get into the Ark, and history itself will be at his mercy."

"But he doesn't HAVE any mercy!" Cheetor burst out. "If we don't save Optimus and Rattrap from him NOW, he'll kill them!" He turned away, his fur standing on end as he panted, trying to find the words to convince the rhino of what they needed to do. Why couldn't Rhinox see what they had to do?! They couldn't just leave their friends with Rampage! "I have to go!" he said in an almost-pleading voice, and then he was leaping through the door before Rhinox could even try to stop him.

"Cheetor! CHEETOR!" The rhino tried to raise the cheetah on his radio, but the other Maximal had turned it off. "Cheetor…" Putting his hands on the edge of a computer console, he hung his head and hoped desperately that this hadn't been what Rampage had wanted. Two of his fellow Maximals might already be dead—how could he handle losing Cheetor to the monster, too?

He had to stay here, though. Oh, he wanted—he NEEDED—to go after Cheetor and help his fellow Maximals, but just the thought of Rampage loose inside the Ark with no one to stop him made him feel sick. The future would hang in the balance, and no one knew what the crab would do with that freedom.

"Base to Silverbolt," he said instead of following Cheetor, and he hoped to Primus that he was doing the right thing. "I need you to head for the Predacon base immediately…"

* * *

.

.

The first thing he was aware of was the damage reports. His internal computer informed him of minor dings and scrapes, but there was nothing too seriously damaged besides his jets, and his repair systems were handling that problem quickly. There was also a ragged hole where his radio had been that would require Rhinox's attention before it would work again. While that was going through the back of his mind, though, he had realized the second thing: how much time had passed. His memory supplied what had preceded his crash, and he transformed so he could sit up and look around, dreading to see a room in the Predacon base, dreading to see Rattrap dead by Rampage's hands—

--and the only thing he saw was the lava lands. Turning, he could look down the ridge at the Predacon base. It looked dark and sinister, but that was normal. What surprised him was that it didn't look any different than usual. It seemed like there should be some sort of difference, something that warned of the change. There was no change, however, and if he hadn't known better he would have assumed Megatron was still in charge. But the Predacon leader's scream still shrilled in his memory, banishing that thought. So much pain couldn't be faked…

Another thought took its place, and Optimus turned to look around again. Then again, more carefully, less hopefully. Nothing. Just ash and lava. There was no sign of Rattrap.

Or rather, there were signs, but Rattrap wasn't there any more. Optimus found the spot where the smaller Maximal had landed, but by then he had found deep tracks in the ash. He really had no idea what the each Predacon's footprints looked like, but by the size it ruled out everyone but Megatron and Rampage. But he knew Megatron simply couldn't have been out here hauling Rattrap away, not with the memory of that animalistic scream echoing in his mind. That left Rampage as the culprit. Optimus had know it all along, really. He just hadn't wanted to admit it. And he tried to deny it to himself, but by looking at the footprints and confirming what he hadn't wanted to know, his hope in finding Rattrap began to slip away. It was there, but every moment made it shrink.

Slowly, cautiously, Optimus followed the tracks towards the Predacon base. It had to be a trap. Rampage had proved himself too cunning to have taken Rattrap away just so he could kill him somewhere else without a reason. But he would kill Rattrap; Optimus didn't doubt that in the least. He had a responsibility as the leader of the Maximals. He had a responsibility as Rattrap's friend. He knew it was a trap.

He walked in anyway.

The tracks ended where Rampage had entered the base. The thin layering of ashes on the metal flooring had been disturbed by other Predacon feet, and Optimus didn't even have the slightest idea of where to start looking the crab. He listened carefully, but the only sound was his own footsteps as he edged down the corridor, scanning for any trace of an ambush. Defeated, he tried to remember the maps of the Predacon base Dinobot had provided at the beginning of the Beast Wars. Perhaps the cages over the lava…would Rampage be that obvious? Probably not.

He kept his back to the corridor wall, knowing that he was walking into a trap searching for a bait he didn't even know was alive anymore. The only thing he could do was prepare for anything, and Optimus grimly did his best to scan everywhere at once as he jumped at shadows and continued further into the Predacon base. This base of dark halls and heat wouldn't have been comfortable at any time, but now, with Rampage loose…

But his unease had a cause more subtle than the constant thought of an insane killer free somewhere. A strange scent that had been bothering the Maximal leader since he'd entered the base, and he paused as he finally recognized it: mech-fluid. He inhaled the faint stench, turning his head as he tried to find a direction for the source, but he couldn't pinpoint it. He hesitated for a long moment, but he decided that the scent was too fresh to be a normal thing for the base. The thought was reluctant but realistic: it might be Rattrap. He transformed to his beast mode, hoping that it wouldn't be Rattrap's mech-fluid he found. Sniffing the air, he cautiously walked down an intersecting corridor, trying to follow it. He couldn't tell, but it vaguely surprised him that it had taken him so long to figure out what it was; heavy and metallic, it stung his nose with its sharp, unique scent. It seemed to thicken the air more with every step he took, sickening him.

Another intersection made him recoil in horror when he checked each direction for Rampage. "Primus…" There, carelessly piled on the floor, was what looked like some robot's legs. A step closer showed him that they had once been Quickstrike's legs. The stench of mech-fluid was overpowering, making Optimus cover his nose in an automatic protective gesture that barely helped.

And into the shocked silence there came a soft sound.

Someone was calling for help.

The entire situation reeked of a trap, but Optimus thought with a bit of wry humor that since he was in this far already, he might as well continue. Still, he made sure to watch his back as he warily followed the distant voice, leaving Quickstrike's scraps behind. The closer he came, the more his hopes of the voice being Rattrap's faded. But he kept going because the voice was calling for help.

And then he kept going because he knew who the voice belonged to.

The moment he touched the door, however, the desperate voice faltered and stopped. He opened it to see Megatron cringing into the remains of a throne, optics wide with terror. They stared at each other in stupefaction, mutually dumbfounded. Megatron had plainly been dreading someone else coming through the door. Optimus had never seen any 'bot in the condition Megatron was in right now; his chest was carved open, his arms ended in burned stumps, and what made it worse was that the Predacon was obviously cringing…but only his head moved.

"Optimus," Megatron said weakly in relief, and his head slumped forward. He took a deep, shuddering breath as the Maximal took a step into the room. "Thank Primus," the Predacon tyrant cried in a quiet, broken voice, and Optimus forgot his wariness and leaped forward, hands tearing at the ties strapping the Predacon into the throne.

"Can you walk?" Optimus asked urgently as he worked, disbelieving optics taking in the sight of Megatron's injuries. He wasn't sure how the Predacon had survived this long, except that he noticed no vital systems in his chest were damaged extensively. He didn't stop to think about it when Megatron shook his head, though. If Rampage had done this much, Optimus didn't doubt that the crab had also done something to prevent his victim from escaping. "Do you know where he is?" he asked next, and the question was just as urgent.

There was no need to name who the Maximal was asking about. Megatron swallowed hard, air filters clogging with the mech-fluid leaking from his chest and mouth. "N-no. But he kept me alive because you arrived," he whispered, irrationally nervous that the noise of them talking might make his torturer suddenly materialize after his shouts for help hadn't. "I-I wasn't really listening, nooo. He was…I…"

"I understand," Optimus said soothingly as Megatron gulped again, and a tiny, detached corner of his mind was amazed that he was using that tone of voice with the 'bot he had been at war with until now. Not only was he using it, but he MEANT it! "He has Rattrap," he continued, his voice turning hard, "but right now I need to get you out of here." He tugged at the last tie while he spoke.

Megatron dimmed his optics, allowing himself to hope that despite everything Rampage had done to him…he would escape with his life. The relief filled him like pure energy. "Optimus," he said almost inaudibly as the larger 'bot started to lift him from the throne he had thought he'd die in, and Optimus paused. "Thank you."

A grim smile turned up the corners of the Maximal's mouth. "You're welcome," he replied, and he picked him up in his arms.

And Megatron screamed as a pain more terrible than anything Rampage had inflicted upon him stabbed into his chest, flooded him with agony, and shattered the world. He could only feel involuntary functions, but it was enough as the shrieking pain seared through his body and mind because he could feel things like breathing, his fuel pump—

--and his spark.

He FELT it torn from him, shredded apart into the emptiness of a void, and he helplessly spiraled into nothing while distantly, so distantly, his body convulsed in the arms of his rescuer with futile, death-rattle protest, and he was more helpless than he'd ever been as the Predacon known as Megatron was wiped from existence. No one ever heard his wail of hopeless despair.

Only a shell was left behind. Optimus knelt beside it on the floor, shivering as he stared into a face frozen into an expression of unending panic. He covered it with one huge hand, bowing his head in sorrow and guilt. He didn't know what he had triggered it, but the moment he had lifted upward Megatron's entire body had spasmed out of control. The Predacon's scream had been agonized and chopped short with terrifying suddenness, and Optimus had fruitlessly checked for vital signs when Megatron went limp at the same time. There hadn't been any. The Predacon who had started the Beast Wars, the Maximal/Predacon conflict, a fight for the future—he was gone, and Optimus grieved for him.

Something caught his eye, though. He had been trying so hard to revive Megatron that he hadn't seen it at first, but now he looked closer at the back of the throne…

…and his eyes narrowed with fury.

"**Where are you, Optimus? Have you killed that idiotic saurian yet?**" speakers all throughout the Predacon base blared, and Rampage laughed. "**Ah, but I know you have! Even from here, his death was SO delectable, seasoned by hopeful thoughts and their bitter ends…and are you ready to play now, Optimus?**"

"WHERE ARE YOU?!?!!" the Maximal leader howled, and there was hatred in his voice. The guilt had swelled into something darker and more viscous, mixing with anger until it filled the ape.

The speakers whined with feedback, but Rampage's chuckling was easily heard. "**Oh, you'll have to find me, Optimus. Did you really think I would make it that simple for you?**"

Optimus snarled gutturally as the speakers shut off with a *click*. The murdered wanted HIM to dance to his tune, now? He would have a harder time playing with him, and the ape swore to Megatron that this time Rampage would not come out unscathed. He must be laughing at the irony of the Maximal leader being his instrument of death, but he wouldn't laugh for long…

He left the room in a storm of hatred, leaving behind the corpse that had once been Megatron and what was strapped to the back of the throne. Optimus hadn't thought to question why Rampage would go through all the trouble of torturing Megatron only to end all unnecessary feeling below his neck. If he had, he might have checked more carefully for traps that Megatron could no longer feel, but as it was, Rampage's careful work hadn't been wasted. The spark-box had remained where it had been embedded…and until Optimus had moved him from the throne, Megatron hadn't been able to feel the shards of energon around his spark.

Rampage's immortal spark could survive being pierced by energon. The flickers of spark still lingering inside the spark-box proved Megatron's couldn't.

Somewhere inside the Predacon base, the killer leaned against a wall as he waited for the next part of the game, and he savored Megatron's death. This, THIS, was what it meant to be free!

.

_End Part Two_

* * *


End file.
